Federal Stimulus Funds Aid UW's King Air

July 26, 2010

King Air has long been a tremendous ambassador for the University of
Wyoming.

Now more than ever.

The university's uniquely-instrumented research aircraft, with
numerous specialized meteorological sensors and data recording
equipment, has undergone a transformation thanks to a recent $470,000
injection of federal stimulus funds from the National Science Foundation
(NSF).

The funding helped facilitate upgrades to instrumentation, radar and
the aircraft itself -- highlighted by the acquisition of a 4-bladed
propeller system that will improve King Air's efficiency and
performance.

"These are all enhancements," says Al Rodi, director of UW's Donald
Veal Flight Research Center and head of the Department of Atmospheric
Science in the College of Engineering. "It's not that we'll be doing
anything we haven't done in the past. It just lets us do what we already
do, only better."

Ironically, Tristan LeCuyer, a researcher from Colorado State
University -- UW's chief athletics rival -- will have the first
opportunity to try out the newly-upgraded King Air. The twin turboprop
is headed to Finland next month for a six- to eight-week, NASA-funded
research project.

This will be just the latest international expedition for King Air,
which has logged about 7,000 air hours since debuting in 1977, visiting
Japan and Saudi Arabia, among other places. Its' predecessors, a
twin-engine Beechcraft in the 1960s and Queen Air in the early ‘70s,
helped establish UW as a premier airborne research university.

"We have been doing this for a long, long time with a lot of clever
and dedicated people here at UW, and I think these three aircraft have
really brought a lot of distinction to the University of Wyoming," says
Rodi. "They have all been well-known, well-respected and great
ambassadors for the university."

The recent upgrades will only strengthen UW's reputation.

In addition to the 4-bladed propeller system, which also serves to
reduce or eliminate the production of aircraft produced ice particles
that can contaminate measurements in the clouds, King Air's avionics
were equipped with an XM weather interface that offers near real-time
monitoring of Next-Generation Radar, or NEXRAD, a network of 159
high-resolution Doppler weather radars operated by the National Weather
Service.

"This is a critical addition for the type of research flying we do,"
says Rodi. "Most airplanes do all they can to avoid weather. But we go
out of our way to find weather."

The other additions included upgrades to King Air's basic instrument
package -- including a new integrated inertial measurement unit to
provide improved accuracy, precision and frequency to measurements of
aircraft attitude and velocity -- and an upgrade to the Wyoming Cloud
Radar that will improve accuracy of airborne Doppler velocity
measurements and the system's polarization capabilities.

"The enhancements provided through NSF stimulus funding are quite
important, all the more so because there is not a well-defined path to
obtain funding for much of the equipment," says Jeff French, project
manager for King Air. "We spend much of our time on the cutting edge,
looking to do new things. It is often difficult to secure funds that
will provide equipment that may not let you do something new, but rather
be more efficient and better at what you already do."

The NSF grant to aid upgrades to King Air was one of 21 awards,
totaling more than $10 million, to UW last year in areas of advanced
scientific research, scholarship advancement and outreach.

Photo:
Matt Burkhart, a research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric
Science, calibrates instruments inside King Air, the University of
Wyoming's uniquely-instrumented research aircraft. (UW Photo)